THE VATICAN'S DOCTRINE: RELIGIOUS DEBATE

By ARI L. GOLDMAN

Published: March 12, 1987

No other major religious group in the United States, including Protestant evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, has adopted an absolute theological stand against intervention in human procreation as outlined in the new Roman Catholic document, leading religious thinkers said yesterday.

Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews generally share the Catholic revulsion against abortion, but they allow for a greater degree of flexibility in aiding a couple who are infertile. The Vatican document in all cases rejected the use of either artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization, in which the egg and sperm are brought together in a laboratory.

While disagreeing with some of its conclusions, evangelicals welcomed the Vatican document for framing in dramatic terms the questions about when human life begins. ''Science ought not necessarily do everything that is theoretically possible,'' said the Rev. Carl F. H. Henry, a leading evangelical theologian. ''It tends to run ahead of moral judgment and it does so at great risk.'' An Evil or a Virtue

However, Dr. Moses Tendler, who holds the chair in Jewish medical ethics at Yeshiva University, drew a distinction between the Jewish and Catholic approaches. ''The word natural is a holy word to the Pope and unnatural means evil,'' Dr. Tendler said. ''To us, unnatural is a mitzvah,'' meaning a virtuous deed.

''Unnatural is not a sin,'' he said, ''but an opportunity to complete God's work.''

As a result, Dr. Tendler said, Jewish law endorses artifical insemination of a woman using her husband's sperm as well as in vitro fertilization when the husband's sperm and wife's egg are involved. In some cases, he added, Jewish law would also permit the use of third-party donor sperm. ''You cannot commit adultery with a catheter or a hypodermic syringe,'' Dr. Tendler said.

Meanwhile, members of the Catholic hierarchy continued to rally around the Vatican document, while feminist theologians severely criticized its conclusions.

Msgr. Peter G. Finn, chief spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said the Archbishop, John Cardinal O'Connor, ''fully supports the document and will do all that is in his power to implement and teach the guidelines.''

Monsignor Finn said that the Vatican instruction had been prepared with the help of a committee of bishops from around the world and distributed to all the bishops, who have accepted the teaching ''without opposition.''

However, Dr. Margaret Farley, a Roman Catholic nun who is a professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, faulted the process by which the document was drawn and its conclusions. Dr. Farley and other women said the document's drafters had failed to consult ''parents who are struggling with these issues'' or women in general.

The Vatican's blanket conclusions, in which virtually any proceative process other than sexual intercourse between husband and wife is termed morally illicit, ''were not justified in terms of the complexity of the questions involved,'' Dr. Farley said. ''People making decisions will not take it seriously,'' she said of the document. ''It doesn't offer them the answers they need. The church, by acting in an authoritarian way loses the kind of moral power regarding these issues.'' Protestant Attitudes Vary

Among Protestants, there is no single position on the issues raised in the Vatican document. Attitudes range from evangelicals, who believe that procreation is a sacred act, to liberals, who see it as a strictly biological matter. The debate on these issues among Christians, which has continued almost since the beginning of Christianity, centers on when the soul enters the body -at conception, in gestation or at birth.

A 1986 policy statement on genetics adopted by the National Council of Churches, which represents more than 30 Protestant and Orthodox Christian groups, explored many of the same medical technologies, but arrived at few conclusions about the morality of them.

The ethicist who drafted the report was Dr. J. Robert Nelson, director of the Institute of Religion at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. ''I think the Vatican has done a real service by forcing the rest of us to clarify our positions on these sensitive issues,'' Dr. Nelson said yesterday. More Agreement Among Jews

There is greater uniformity of view among the different Jewish groups than within Christianity. Thinkers in the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform branches would agree with Dr. Seymour Siegel, professor of ethics and theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, who said, ''When nature plays a trick on us, we have to outwit it.''

The Jewish branches differ, however, on the issue of surrogate motherhood. While many Conservative and Reform theologians allow its use in certain circumstances, the Orthodox forbid the practice.

Dr. Tendler of Yeshiva, who is Orthodox, said that the Orthodox position stems not from issues of adultery but from the prohibition aginst putting someone's life in danger. Since a woman giving birth is endangered, he reasoned, a woman cannot take that risk unless she will have the benefit of producing a child of her own.

The Protestants closest to the Vatican on reproductive issues are the Fundamentalist Christians. The Rev. Edward Dobson, vice president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., said, ''We begin with the same moral principles and the same general concerns for the sanctity of life.''

Fundamentalists, he said, would share the Catholic attitude on surrogate motherhood, laboratory fertilization and on third-party donors. They would disagree, however, on artificial insemination. Most fundamentalist thinkers, he said, would see no problem in using the technique if husband and wife were involved.

''The Pope has made such a blanket statement that it is just irrelevant,'' she said. ''He thinks that whatever is not based on the natural order is immoral. How can you live in the 20th century and believe that? How can you ride in a car or drive a plane? That's not natural, now, is it?''